


the high road is hard to find

by stars_and_sunflowers



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Have fun lol, M/M, The Laurens Interlude, canon character death, this is my first fic i hope it doesn't suck too hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-23 23:39:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17089901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stars_and_sunflowers/pseuds/stars_and_sunflowers
Summary: “A soldier is bailing out.He curled his lips on the barrel.And I don't know if the dead can talk,To anyone.”AKA, the interlude.





	the high road is hard to find

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone!  
> This is my first published fic. I wrote this around a year ago and literally just found it in my google drive. So, uh, here it is.  
> (Sorry, I have no clue what to write in these notes)  
> I hope you all like it. Thanks so much for reading!
> 
> (Title and summary based off the song "The High Road" by Broken Bells.)

~

so what if the love of his life is now married?

(he knows it’s not alexander’s fault, nor is it eliza’s, because they complement each other in a way he and alex never did, and it’s only natural that they would fall in love. and he also knows that in this time, two men can never love each other like men and women do without dire consequences. that doesn’t stop it from hurting, though. every time alex mentions her in a letter, another crack runs through john’s heart. it’ll only be so long until he breaks.)

so what if he’s abandoned his wife and only child?

(he’s stopped writing letters to martha manning almost entirely. he feels awful about it, and swears every day that he’s going to reply to the letter he received six months ago, but he can’t bring himself to do it. every time he puts his pen to paper, all he can think of is how he’ll never get to explain himself to martha, and how he’ll never get to see frances grow up. there’s a large dark spot on the blank paper, now, from where john had started to write, but the ink that had never formed into words.)

it doesn’t matter, john tells himself. because at least he’s got a cause that he can die for. if he can throw all his energy, all that remains of his old passion, into liberating the wrongly enslaved, he can pretend that his life was worth something. he can say that he’s done some good in the world.

(whenever the dark tendrils of shame threaten to snatch him away, he drowns them in blood and gunshots and screams. war is the only thing that’s ever made john feel free.)

this way, he’ll have an excuse to never make it out alive. 

(he’s too cowardly to really kill himself. but every time john charges recklessly through lines of redcoats and musket balls fly past his face, he prays that one of them hits its mark.)

(he’s forgotten what being alive is supposed to feel like. nothing is left of him but his own desperation and insanity.)

but somehow, he never really imagines he’ll actually die.

(not like alexander, who imagined death so much it felt more like a memory.)

until one of the musket balls does hit its mark, straight to the broken heart. 

(he barely even notices it when it happens. one moment he’s riding into battle, shouting for freedom for america and freedom for the slaves, and the next moment he’s on the ground, mud and grass and blood staining his uniform. john touches his chest, and it comes away dripping scarlet.)

already, he’s fading away, losing what’s left of his grasp on reality. there’s no beat, no melody, no explosive end to dying, just the silence of the void growing louder and louder and louder.

(one of his soldiers picks him up and carries his broken body away from the battle. the man yells for a medic, screaming as loud as his lungs will allow him to. john barely hears him.)

john closes his eyes. his mind is growing foggy. 

(but somewhere deep within his chest, somewhere near his fragmented heart, a horrific panic is mounting.)

he doesn’t want to die, he realizes, as he takes his last breath. he has to apologize to his family, he has to make sure his brave soldiers are freed, he has to- he has to see his alexander again-

(but it’s too late.)

~


End file.
